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Tuesday, November 17, 2015

See What Your Smart Phone is Doing to You [Disturbing Images]

Artist Antoine Geiger has created an
unsettling series of digitally altered photographs showing people’s
faces getting sucked into their devices.

See details plus disturbing images below after the cut:

The images are striking, and they speak to a common concern
in our culture: are we becoming too
concerned with our smartphones and tablets? Are we losing genuine human
experience in exchange for a cheap substitute? Is this the beginning of a dark
spiral into nested simulated existences that strip us of our humanity and
identity?

“This work is called « SUR-FAKE »” the artist writes in the
series’ explanation. “It [places] the screen as an object of ‘mass
subculture,’ alienating the relation to our own body, and more generally to the
physical world. I wanted to come back to the idea of these faked identities,
over-exposed, sucked by the digital gulf that breaks the relation to ‘real’, to
bring back a self-focused image of the individual. What interests me in this
texture of sucked faces, is the the over-exposure gradually allows a very
organic dimension, as well as digital, to render something quite disturbing.”

Conceptually, this is nothing new. Artists and social
critics have decried smartphones since their creations. But in terms of social
patterns, this is downright ancient. As an XKCD comicarticulately
points out:

What we’re seeing here is just another case of juvenoia.
If you just brushed over that link without clicking it, you should seriously
give that video a watch because that man knows himself some knowledge.
Basically, this is just part of a cycle of needless panic that comes with each
generation in which the old distrust the social norms of the young.

“This polymorphous inter-face is turning into a dialogue
between your neurosis and your psychosis,” Geiger writes. But is it really? Or
are our devices making us more connected than ever before? Every day
we are exposed to more humanity than is unprecedented in history. We watch each
other’s videos, read each other’s thoughts, share each other’s ideas. I argue
that in this era of ever-falling violent crime stats, our devices are
helping us build empathy, not isolate ourselves.

What do you think? Are we sacrificing ourselves to these
devices, or are they drawing us together? Let us know in the comments!